Saturday, January 30, 2016

I guess this will be my last post for the New Year and to end the first month of the Year 2016, I will still talk about food. My friend and I decided to make our breakfast date a regular basis. Something to look forward to every first Friday of every month.

And to start of, we choose Clinton St Baking Company. We dine at Downtown Dubai location on the first day of January 2016.The place is open from 8:00 AM till 11:00 PM, serving breakfast day and night, seven days a week. Isn't that amazing? Imagine waking up early for breakfast after sleeping late the night before to welcome the New Year. It was a great morning actually. A fresh start. New beginning.

I had a hard time choosing from their menu and finally settled to Farmer's Plate. With their soft scrambled eggs, chicken apple sauce sausage, farmhouse cheese, herb roasted tomatoes, watercress, and sourdough toast.

It took me sometime to follow-up this mail, I got busy. Moving forward, we ordered New York magazine's best blueberry pancake, although instead of the blueberry, we chose the chocolate chunks.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

I am becoming a morning person and loving breakfast than any other meal of the day. The aroma of coffee in the morning is invigorating and apart from breakfast being affordable, not all people wake up early in the morning to dine out. Restaurant are not full during this time of the day so you get to relax a bit.

One of the place we love visiting for a morning cup of joe is Denny's in Al Rigga.Denny's does all around full breakfasts

My all time favorite is their Lamberjack Slam. They serve it with two buttermilk pancakes, a grilled turkey ham slice, two bacon strips, two sausage links and two eggs, plus hash browns and choice of bread. I really love their crisp-on-the-outside hash browns, sausages, and lots of buttered toast.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

I must admit I am one of the many social media user who go out for a meal and post a picture of my food but not all the time. I am also aware that nobody cares what I had to eat, but my intention though is not to brag about the food, of course, a picture perfect photo for instagram is also an added bonus, but the main purpose is blog about it and help those who seek good food and discover places that are not so popular but serve the best foodgasmic meal.

I want to share with you my recent find. Well, its not very recent actually. I was planning to go to the restaurant when I was still pregnant but since I was watching my weight back then, I resist the urge to visit the place. And the long wait is all worth it. With the cold weather and monthsary celebration, we finally experience their cuisine and in their own words, where outdoor and indoor space is fused together to create an incomparable ambiance of peace and calm.

The Farm. Located in Al Barari opposite Falcon City is owned by Zaal family whose vision is to develop unique natural residential communities and facilities. The restaurant was visioned in their desire to offer a completely different type of dining experience to their residents and visitors to the estate.

We've been in The Farm twice for breakfast and we still can't get enough of it.

My cafe latte was serve with a heart.

My mini-ME ordered chocolate waffle. They served the waffle with an ice cream but because of the cold morning breeze, we requested them to separate it.

Far-ouT is the far more adventurer than me when if comes to food. I am always on the safe side, making sure I am familiar with the food I eat. I don't really want to experiment and spoil my breakfast. But boy, their Egg Florentine was delish. He ordered Ciabatta bread as well

My friend Ella decided to hold her birthday celebration in The Farm with us, and so this time, I made sure to order something different from my usual.

I so love my order. Poached egg on Tapioca and Potato Hash. Yes, I know what you are thinking. Small servings, right? I thought so too. So I was surprised how it was able to satisfy my appetite and mind you, I have a big one.

By the way, this is how the Chocolate Waffle was presented with the ice-cream,

This time, Far-ouT ordered their Pastrami Frittata

and additional Bagel bread

My friend had the Egg Florentine. She thought it wasn't enough as well. But after eating the first one, she could hardly finish the next

On both occasion, we couldn't help but get awed by its beautiful settings.

Their indoor area was beautiful

But brace yourself, the outdoor area was even more spectacular

They even have an area with different plants were they get, I think, some of the vegetables they use for ingredients.

We still haven't tried their lunch and dinner menu. Definitely, saving it for another special occasion.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Hello. Its been a while again, I guess. I thought of updating my blog for the longest time, but it was difficult to juggle work and home with two bundle of joy now. Yes, you heard it right. I now have a boy. I believe that the essence of being a woman has been fulfilled already. A girl and a boy. So I already told my Far-ouT that 2 is already perfect for our family. Although he expressed his desire to have another one in the near future. Near future is like 2 years from now since I am not getting younger at 36. But I want to stand my ground this time. Going through nine months of pregnancy and giving birth without the intervention of epidural is really not my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, I feel that I am born to be a mother at some point because I barely had problems being pregnant, no complications whatsoever, no weight gain and stretch marks are my perks as well. So apart from the morning sickness for almost 2 months, I get along fine during my pregnancy.

My struggle though is eating. I love to eat and became my frustration while pregnant. I don't have much of a choice with food, we all want me to eat healthy and avoid the ones that may harm my baby which of course is what is best. I also have a theory that most family have 3 children because they all try to have a boy and a girl or a girl and a boy combination. So if they bear 2 girls consecutively, they will try for a third one hoping for a boy and vise versa. Do you get my point? Since we were blessed with a girl and boy now, it is time for us to keep the family of 4. At least that is what I keep telling Far-ouT. He is not yet convince since both of us came from a family with other 2 other siblings. I am keeping my options open though,, the pain I went through is still fresh on my mind. By the way, if you keep on reading below, I am writing something about my delivery at Latifa, as I felt it is my duty to give details since I had problems searching for reviews online about it.

I am at 2 months postpartum recovery already and I would say it was not an easy one. I am guessing I had the baby blues. My mini-ME is 6 years apart from our new bundle of joy, so imagine the gap of my 2 kids, that I barely had any memories of my first pregnancy. I kept on comparing both (my pregnancies), and I feel that this pregnancy is harder than the first one. Few days after delivery, I was having a hard time walking, I feel something is pulling down there. I was nursing a second degree tear, and as a self proclaimed born worrier, I was worried of the stitches that might fall off and opening up the wound. I struggle on my own because of this unnecessary paranoia. I was not given a clear instruction on when to see a Doctor for a follow-up check-up so I already seen a Doctor in a private hospital instead to check on my condition and Thank God everything was fine.

Giving birth at Latifa was pretty straight forward, something that was not for me so I guess my delivery was not a easy one for me. As further discussed on my previous blog entry, during the early stage of my pregnancy, I was seeing an OB at a local government hospital and I was only transferred at Latifa at almost 7 months already. The people at Latifa are experts on their field, no doubt, make sure you take note of your records as well though, on several occasion of my check-ups, different people asked the same questions so its best to keep a record of your own, I was already having difficulty remembering some of the details during the latter part of my pregnancy.

Anyway, moving forward, I am already having the contractions in the morning of November 4, so I already called Far-ouT who is also scheduled to paddle in our Dragon boat race. I arrived at Latifa around 7ish and 5 cms dilated already. As usual, I get the same questions while on labor. They sent me directly to the labor room after checking. I was already very much in pain and a nurse-midwife Filipina was the one available during that time and was also the one who attended the delivery of my baby boy. During the interval, she told me she will not give me any more of the epidural since I will gave birth anytime soon. I can't help but give out a scream every time I feel the pain. When it was time to push, I gave 4 with a failed one that almost stopped Uno from coming out. Good thing, I was conscious and gave a big final push on the fourth one. I was instantly relieved right after he came out. That was the most painful experience of my life and so I thought, as I mentioned earlier, I had a tear and would need to stitch me up. The nurse-midwife Filipina was not allowed to do the procedure and called a obstetrician to do the necessary. I guess the cleaning of the perineal area before stitching up the tear was more painful than the labor pain and actual delivery so brace yourself. After she finished, I was brought to the recovery room with four other patients, I just could not rest with all the noise around so I requested to be transferred to a private room but unfortunately, none was available. I just had to bear it for a night anyway. With little sleep, my mother and I still waited until late afternoon the following day to check-out of the hospital.

The healing of my second degree tear was also frustrating as it took me 4 weeks to fully recovered but the difficult part was, I don't know who to contact in times when I have questions and feeling that something was not right. But I realized that I only worry too much as after my recovery, everything was fine.

Our little bundle of joy is doing great as well. He already had several of the vaccine in Mankhool government clinic and the best part is, its all for free.